


Present and Supportive

by lavvyan



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode Tag, Episode: s05e07 Ina Paha (If Perhaps), Father-Son Relationship, M/M, Queerplatonic Relationships, Steve McGarrett Needs a Hug, and at the risk that it will make you run away:, but with neither sex nor age play, slight daddy kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 05:50:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15479022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavvyan/pseuds/lavvyan
Summary: "You were there!" he snaps, angry that Steve would go for the cheap shot. "Every step, through the whole sorry tale, you were right there with me." His throat closes up and he coughs, glares at Steve, who has the decency to look a little sheepish. "Who was there with you, huh?"Steve opens his mouth, closes it. He bites his lip.Then he says, his voice so low Danny barely hears him, "You were. In a way."Danny makes Steve have that cry.





	Present and Supportive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [msbeeinmybonnet (beeinmybonnet)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/beeinmybonnet/gifts).



> 1\. The story is based on [this post on Tumblr](https://msbeeinmybonnet.tumblr.com/post/176353564797/lavvyan-msbeeinmybonnet-oh-my-heart-look), in which msbeeinmybonnet cursed my name, wrote a wonderful piece of meta on all the Dad Feels in episode 5.07 (the one where Steve gets abducted by Wo Fat and dreams up a canon AU), and demanded fic. This... isn't that fic. This is me reading "I swear that if the rest of the team hadn’t been present, Steve would have curled into Danny’s chest when he started to sob," and running with it. 
> 
> 2\. Regarding that daddy kink tag. There's no explicit relationship of that kind in here, but its unacknowledged existence is heavily implied towards the end. 
> 
> 3\. In fact, nearly everything about their relationship is heavily implied. This is canon!Steve and Danny, hence the queerplatonic tag and both slash AND gen relationship tags. These guys are life partners, but they're not having sex about it. 
> 
> 4\. This story is as yet unedited because it's sunny and warm out and I don't want to look at it anymore. Concrit, as always, is welcome.

In the wake of his abduction, Steve clams up. 

He's not obvious about it. He files reports with just the right amount of detail. He goes through detox, the mandatory therapy session, makes noises about going back to work because he's bored at home. He invites the team for a cookout. He bemoans the damage to his car and glares when Danny calls it a piece of junk. 

Danny watches as Steve smiles and jokes and deflects Chin's cautious question about the purpose of the footage they found at the... the crime scene. He sighs at the way Steve's jaw clenches and his stare goes vacant when he thinks no one's looking, like any of them are going to let him out of their sight for the foreseeable future. He shakes his head when Jerry happily describes how he set up his latest electronic monstrosity, only for Steve to leave the room, claiming he forgot to make an important call. 

"Was it something I said?" Jerry asks, eyebrows drawing together. 

Instead of using 'female' and 'male' for his cables like a sane person, he's been referring to them as the 'mom' and 'dad' connectors.

"You're a schmuck," Danny tells him, a little annoyed and, despite himself, a little fond. 

Steve can't go on like that, though, and so Danny shows up early the next morning on Steve's doorstep. He's packed a rucksack and is wearing his hiking boots, neither of which are things he ever thought he'd need before he met his exhausting goof of a partner. 

"What's this?" Steve asks, leaning against the door frame. 

"It's my dress uniform," Danny snaps, and Steve grins. "What do you mean, 'what's this,' what does it look like?"

"Hiking?" Steve asks, still grinning, looking like nothing could move him away from that door. "You?"

" _We,_ " Danny corrects him, "are going on a little trip. Now come on, we don't have all day."

That's a lie. It's Saturday; they can make a weekend of it if they want. 

Miracle of miracles, Steve bounds into the house without arguing. Barely a couple of minutes pass before he's back, dressed for the occasion, apparently trusting that Danny's rucksack will hold whatever stuff they'll need. He's still a little paler than usual, an ugly scab marring his forehead where he got himself shot in his stupid face, but for the first time in days, he moves with genuine enthusiasm. 

Danny just hopes he's not about to ruin Steve's day. 

Steve insists on driving, of course, and Danny acquiesces with a put-upon sigh that's only slightly exaggerated. He sits back in the passenger seat, content to shoot the shit about weekend drivers as he directs Steve left and right and, "What, what are you doing, just pass her already!"

Two thirds into the drive, Steve realizes where they're going. He falls quiet, throws a sidelong glance at Danny. His fingers clench around the steering wheel. He doesn't argue, though, which Danny chooses to interpret as a good sign. 

They pull into the little parking lot at the foot of the Ko'olau like they've done maybe half a dozen times over the years, once with Grace in tow. Steve takes the rucksack and starts walking without a word, leaving Danny to follow in his wake. 

They make their way through trail-less terrain, following a path that's only in Steve's mind's eye. Danny treks through the valley, eyes on Steve's back. Steve's shoulders look so painfully tense, Danny's half-afraid he'll give himself a raging headache before they've even crested the first hill. 

Maybe this wasn't such a great idea. 

But Steve's determinedly striding through the underbrush, and no way in hell is Danny going to try and turn them back now. Even though his calf muscles start to burn something fierce as they make their way up a particularly steep incline. 

The further up the mountain slope they get, though, the more Steve unwinds. His shoulders slump and he inhales deeply, turning his head every now and then to look at the familiar beauty around them. His hands drop from the rucksack straps to hang loose and relaxed at his side as he walks. 

Steve's expression, when they stop to take a few swigs of water, is pensive, almost meditative. 

Danny smiles, ducks his head and leaves him to his thoughts. 

They reach the petroglyphs well before noon, still ahead of the midday sun. Danny looks at the figures for a while, strangely entranced as always by the little guys with their little spears. Steve, he thinks, is just really fond of the stylized turtle. 

Then he stretches, rotates his arms a few times to unkink his back and, after a glance at Steve, walks over to the edge of their little plateau. He used to be wary of this place, remembering the sound Steve's body made as it hit the ledge below, all those years ago. It will always be one of the many, many spots on the island where Steve got hurt. But repeated outings, Grace's enthusiasm about the view, and most of all Steve's reverent love of the petroglyphs have turned this into one of Danny's favorite places. 

And, like his other favorite place, he can sit and let his legs dangle. He does so now, sighing as he braces his hands on the edge. Behind him, Steve rummages through the rucksack, presumably stowing their water bottles. 

Then he flops down beside Danny, looking out at the vast stretch of greenery at their feet. 

Sitting like this, they're almost the same height. Damn Steve's stupidly long legs. The man is like a ninja giraffe, if giraffes were built like tanks and spent their formative years being trained by the government to kill other giraffes in the name of god and country. 

"You need to talk about it," Danny says quietly. Beside him, Steve stiffens. "What that guy did to you... it's eating you up."

"Talking isn't going to change that."

"Talking _helps,_ Steven."

"The way you talked about Matt?" Steve demands. 

Danny flinches. 

"You were there!" he snaps, angry that Steve would go for the cheap shot. "Every step, through the whole sorry tale, you were right there with me." His throat closes up and he coughs, glares at Steve, who has the decency to look a little sheepish. "Who was there with you, huh?"

Steve opens his mouth, closes it. He bites his lip.

Then he says, his voice so low Danny barely hears him, "You were. In a way."

Danny stares at him. 

"I..." Steve drops his gaze and blows out a frustrated breath. "Look, this isn't easy for me."

Danny puts his hand on Steve's shoulder and squeezes. "No one here but us. We've got time."

He'll sleep under the stars if he has to.

When Steve starts to talk, slowly, haltingly, it's not about torture. It's not about Wo Fat's plans or how it felt to have his body give out on him, or any of the dozen other things Danny would have expected. It's not even about old news footage of his mother's death or newly-fresh memories of childhood days spent on the beach. 

"I had these dreams," Steve says, "when I was under. They were... they seemed so real."

And he tells Danny about them. 

About how his dad had been saved, about their relieved reunion, about Danny's role in all of it. Visiting Hesse in the hospital, finding Wo Fat. Killing him. Most of all, he talks about how glad he'd been, how happy that his dad was alive, but how even in his visions that hadn't been enough to forge a lasting connection. 

"I would have left," he says, in a voice that's less than steady. "I'd missed the island so much, but it wasn't... I didn't feel at home there."

"Maybe some part of you knew it wasn't real," Danny offers. 

He doesn't think that's it. In fact, he thinks that somewhere not-so-deep inside, Steve never forgave his father for breaking up the remains of their family. After shooting Wo Fat in his dream world, he would've had no reason to stay on the island. 

Danny's read Steve's report. He knows that Wo Fat was after the location of his own father. And everything he knows about Steve's crime scene tells him that all of it, from the drugs to the McGarrett home videos, was designed to force a connection between them. He doesn't know if the plan was designed to make Steve think Wo Fat was part of his family, or if it was supposed to draw parallels between two men who wanted to have their fathers back. He only knows that it was going to fail from the beginning. 

The damage from losing his mother and then being sent away is the very foundation of the man Steve is today. You don't break through those layers of hurt and subconscious resentment with half a day's torture and a drug cocktail. 

Danny would rather swallow his own tongue than say that out loud, though. 

"Yeah." Steve looks out over the valley below them. "Maybe."

They sit in silence for a while, the strong breeze ruffling Danny's hair. They've made progress, he thinks, lanced some of the festering hurt that made Steve withdraw from them. But Steve has something left to say. It's in the stiff set of his shoulders, the tension in his posture. 

Danny waits. 

"I miss my dad," Steve says. His voice wavers, and Danny's heart goes out to him, but Steve still isn't done. "He said he was glad I was home, but you know what? I didn't believe him. I wanted to, but I didn't." A smile, so brief and bitter Danny aches for him. "He didn't even ask me to stay. Not even in my dream. You did, but not him."

"Steve," Danny says helplessly.

Steve swallows, blinks. "I miss him, but he wasn't a good..." He clears his throat. "I can't..." He blinks again, eyes red-rimmed and damp. A last fortifying breath, and then he blurts, "I wish he'd been like you."

" _Babe._ " Danny reaches out before he can think better of it, putting his arm around Steve's shoulders and pulling him in. 

Steve sags against him, breath hitching as he all but collapses into the touch, but Danny's got him. He presses a kiss to Steve's temple, below the scabbing furrow left by a bullet that nearly turned Steve's death into a last, cruel punchline. Shot in the head, like his father before him, through the machinations of the same evil bastard. United in death as they hadn't been in life, not even in Steve's hallucinations. Jesus fucking Christ. 

Steve shudders at the touch of Danny's lips, shaky breaths turning into wet gasps. Danny closes his eyes and pulls him closer, rubs Steve's shoulders, his back, the nape of his neck. Anywhere he can reach.

"You're all right," he murmurs, "I'm here, you're okay," over and over, as Steve shakes through years of pent-up grief and loneliness. Crooning comforting nonsense, not unlike he'd comfort Grace, because Steve needs someone to be there for him and Danny can be, _needs_ to be that someone. "Hey, you're all right. You'll be okay."

Maybe not tomorrow, or even soon. But Steve will be fine, even if Danny has to _carry_ him there to make it happen. 

He doesn't know how long they sit there before Steve's breathing slowly evens out. It doesn't matter. What matters is that Steve exhales, swallows, and then takes a deep gulp of the warm, green-smelling air, pulling away only far enough to bump his shoulder against Danny's. Danny smiles and nudges back, pretends not to notice Steve wiping his face on the sleeve of his shirt. 

"I still say a Yankees game would have been more fun than this," he says blithely, the way he has since the first time they came here. Feels like a lifetime ago now. 

"Not in a million years," Steve returns at once, voice almost steady, and off they are, discussing baseball and culture and how one is part of the other and thus infinitely superior to – admittedly neat – rock graffiti. Pressed together shoulder to thigh while birds flutter to and fro above the ridiculously lush canopy beneath their feet. Healing, themselves, each other. 

They're all right. They've got this.

They'll be okay.


End file.
